


3:27 AM

by poppunkpadfoot (StormVandal)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: HPFT, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormVandal/pseuds/poppunkpadfoot
Summary: It was 3:27 AM when James Potter was abruptly awoken by the sound of his cell phone vibrating off of his bedside table.Written for HPFT's Great Collab, theme: back from the brink, challenge: internalized oppression.





	3:27 AM

It was 3:27 AM when James Potter was abruptly awoken by the sound of his cell phone vibrating off of his bedside table.

 

He groped around on the floor for it, thankfully finding it before it stopped ringing, and frowned deeply when he saw Sirius’s name on the screen. He slipped out of bed as he answered - the vibrating hadn’t woken Lily, but he couldn’t be sure that she would also sleep through a conversation.

 

“Sirius?” he said quietly, easing the bedroom door shut behind him. “It’s the middle of the night, mate, what’s going on?”

 

There was a long silence, long enough that James almost started to wonder whether Sirius had somehow managed to buttdial him in his sleep. However, he could hear slightly ragged breathing on the other end.

 

“Sirius?” he asked again.

 

“Hi James,” said Sirius on the other end.

 

He sounded… odd. Really odd. His voice was hoarse and hollowed-out, and ever so slightly tremulous. James had heard him sound like that before, and it was never good news.

 

“What’s going on?” he asked, in a carefully measured tone.

 

Another beat of silence, and then Sirius spoke again.

 

“I’m going to kill myself.”

 

James had heard that from him before, too - most often in overdramatic, flippant tones in response to inconveniences or mildly bad news, but once or twice in all seriousness, as he knew was the case now. He’d have to be very careful with his next few questions.

 

“Where are you?” he asked, heading towards the front door.

 

“My bedroom.”

 

“Okay. Do you have a plan?”

 

“Not a specific one.”

 

The veiled ‘yet’ under that sentence was impossible to miss. James hurriedly shoved his feet into his shoes; he was only in his pyjamas, but he didn’t want to waste time changing, so he just threw his coat on over them and grabbed his keys.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, his breath hitching strangely. “I just… I can’t be alone right now, if I’m alone much longer I swear I’m going to do it, I… Can you come over?”

 

James was already swinging the door open before Sirius even finished his sentence. “Stay where you are, okay?” he said as he locked it behind him. “I’m on my way.”

 

“Okay,” said Sirius on the other end, so faintly that James almost missed it; then, before he could even say goodbye, Sirius hung up.

 

With fumbling fingers, James pulled up Uber on his phone and ordered a driver. To his great relief, despite the late hour, there was a driver only four minutes away. He waited impatiently, shivering slightly, until the right car appeared; luckily, the driver wasn’t the chatty type, and the drive to Sirius’ flat passed in silence.

 

He took the stairs two at a time and let himself in with his key. He couldn’t help but feel some apprehension as he toed off his shoes and shrugged off his coat in the entryway. Sirius may have said that he didn’t have a plan, but that had been a whole twenty minutes ago, and Sirius had always been impulsive. However, when James reached the bedroom, it was not to find some horrific scene. Sirius was sitting in the middle of his bed, his knees pulled up to his chest and staring blankly at the opposite wall.

 

The room was a mess - clothes blanketed the floor, and there was a small pile of dirty dishes on the bedside table. Sirius was not normally the world’s tidiest person, but he also wasn’t a big fan of pigsties. As for Sirius himself, his hair was an unwashed tangle, and James could see the rings under his eyes from the doorway. He looked just as much a mess as the room itself.

 

“Hey Padfoot,” James said quietly.

 

“Hey,” Sirius mumbled into his knees.

 

With a little sigh, James picked his way over to the bed and settled down on the edge. He had his eyes fixed on Sirius, but Sirius wouldn’t even look at him, let alone meet his gaze.

 

Things were bad again, that much was obvious. James could feel guilt settling in - how had he not realized? Thinking back quickly, he realized that he hadn’t actually seen or spoken to Sirius in about two weeks, only texted him - and Sirius was much better at acting over texting than in person.

 

He wanted to kick himself.

 

“What’s going on, Sirius?” he asked, reaching out to gently touch his arm, hoping that could at least get him to look over - but no luck. Sirius actually recoiled from his touch, and still wouldn’t look at him. He also didn’t answer the question. “Has something happened?” he tried; he got a barely-perceptible shake of the head as a response.

 

Luckily, James managed to stop himself from sighing in frustration. He cast around quickly for a different approach, and decided there was no point pretending he couldn’t see that things had been bad for a little while.

 

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” he asked.

 

Sirius let out a slightly hysterical-sounding laugh into his knees. A few years ago, that would have made James start panicking, sending him into a smothering overdrive that would make Sirius shut down in short order. Now, though, he had more practice. He settled more comfortably onto the bed and waited.

 

“Why didn’t I call you sooner?” Sirius repeated, hollow and disbelieving. “Is that a joke? It’s… it’s fucking  _ embarrassing _ , James! What was I supposed to call and say? ‘Hello, yes, fancy coming over and watching me stare at the ceiling for two hours for no reason? Why don’t you just pop on over and remind me at five hour intervals to feed myself? Except I’m too much of a piece of shit to do something as basic as boil water and put pasta in it, so you’ll probably have to make the food as well. Oh, and then I probably won’t even want to eat it, and then I’ll probably cry, and I know you wouldn’t want to miss that!’”

 

His voice got louder and wilder with every word, and by the time he fell silent, his breath was hitching dangerously. He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingernails hard into his forearms. James, rather than pointing this out or trying to pull his hands away, just shifted cautiously closer.

 

“You know I wouldn’t have minded,” he said patiently. “I mean, I like cooking -”

 

“It’s not - don’t do that, don’t -”

 

It was like a switch flipped; one second Sirius was glaring, and the next second he was sobbing into his arms. He froze when James reached out and touched his arm, but after a moment he crumpled, and James finally shuffled all the way over to him and pulled him into a hug.

 

He buried his face into James’s shoulder, and for a few moments James just held onto him, feeling a brief flare of relief when he dug his hands into the back of his sweater instead of keeping up his death grip on his arms.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius choked out eventually. “God, I always do this shit to you, I just.. I’m so fucking  _ tired _ .”

 

“I know, it’s okay. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

 

“Like hell I don’t,” Sirius replied scornfully.

 

“What could you -?”

 

“I don’t know, waking you up in the middle of the night? Being fucking pathetic? Needing you to come over here and fucking, I don’t know, rescue me?”

 

“You aren’t pathetic,” said James as calmly as he could, although he was rather inclined to cry. “And there’s nothing wrong with needing help. I’m really glad you called.” For a moment he was overwhelmed by the way his brain chose to assault him with a slideshow of what would have happened if Sirius hadn’t called. “Please. I want you to call at times like this. And - I know you’re going to say some shit like ‘I don’t know why’ or something, but just… accept it, okay?”

 

There was a long pause before Sirius huffed out a little laugh. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

 

James shuffled up towards the headboard and flopped onto his back. “Come here,” he said, patting the mattress next to him. Sirius laughed again, slightly louder this time, hauled himself over and flopped down, tucking his face into James’s shoulder.

 

“I’m going to stay the night,” James said softly, rubbing his hand in slow circles on Sirius’s back. “And in the morning I’m going to make us some breakfast, and then we’re going to take a look online and see if we can’t find you some help, or at least get started. Okay?”

 

“Okay,” Sirius said after a moment of hesitation. “That sounds okay.”

 

He still sounded thin and tired, but maybe he didn’t sound like he would shatter into pieces any second anymore, and on a night like this, James would take that happily.

 

He was honestly expecting that they would lie there together in relatively comfortable silence; it was a pleasant surprise when, in a fairly short order, Sirius dozed off against his shoulder.

 

For the first time  since 3:27 AM, James let himself relax a little. He knew things weren’t going to be perfect in the morning - they almost definitely wouldn’t even be easy - but at least they seemed to be out of the danger zone.

 

He fished his phone out to send Lily a quick text, before settling in more comfortably and, after a while, joining Sirius in sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank youuu to Emma (facingthenorthwind) for helping me with this!


End file.
